Live is beautiful

Art goes dynamic with a difference as performance artists involve audiences in the pursuit of a new form.

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Nirmala Ravindran

July 4, 2010

ISSUE DATE: July 12, 2010

UPDATED: July 11, 2010 17:50 IST

Subodh Gupta showers in cowdung in a purification ritual. Nikhil Chopra bangs away on drums like a rockstar. Sonia Khurana's nude body tries to fly like a Bird. Jasmeen Patheja is both the news reader and the viewer. Tejal Shah is curled up in a hammock 15 ft above the ground. Welcome to the world of performance art, probably the only form where the audience becomes part of the work by the simple act of viewing it. In fact, it's next to impossible to remain passive.

NIKHIL CHOPRA, 36Art: The Drum Solo-Live PerformanceIn a blacked-out gallery, the spotlight is on the gleaming drums and the dazzling percussionist as Chopra drums it all out.

Although a nascent industry in India, performance art, thanks to its intrinsic nature and the medium of presentation, is finding a larger audience even as Indian artists find themselves in the global spotlight. What emerged as a reaction to the commercialisation of art and auction prices in the 1950s and 1960s in the West, where artists used their bodies to subvert art, has now gained popularity in India.

For instance, Nikhil Chopra's Yog Raj Chitrakar has Chopra donning the mantle of an artist from an unspecified era in a 72-hour performance creating a metafictional premise. According to Mortimer Chatterjee of Chatterjee and Lal, which hosts all of Chopra's shows, "The increasing number of invitations to perform around the world has created a further spur to Chopra's visibility in India."

PUSHPAMALA N., 54Art: Cracking The Whip-Photo performanceDressing in period costume, the artist refashions stereotypes to subvert and critique the forensic classification of humanity.

Incidentally, Chopra was listed among the 30 most important emerging artists by ArtReview, London. Chopra has just been shown at the prestigious Art Basel while radical performance artist Inder Salim just returned after performing at the Nippon International Performance Art Festival in Japan and Jasmeen Patheja will work towards completing her latest work Indri, a performance photography collaboration, at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany. The performance photography by Pushpamala N., one of the pioneers of this genre in India, will be shown at four international museums over the next 12 months.

While the initial thrust came from the Khoj International Artists Association, other galleries like Espace in Delhi, The Loft, Volte and Chatterjee and Lal in Mumbai have also been hosting performance art. "Performance as a genre requires a mindset that is open to conceptual ideas and alternative ways of viewing," says Anupa Mehta, art consultant, writer and director of The Loft. Adds Pooja Sood, director of Khoj, "The form is gaining validity, though it will take a few years for the audience to turn discerning."

SUBODH GUPTA,46Art: Pure-Performance VideoCovered in a thick layer of cowdung which is later hosed off in a shower, Gupta plays with the meaning of purity.

What was once dismissed as gimmicky and self-indulgent is slowly finding acceptance. Pushpamala admits that it has taken her a decade to create a body of serious and innovative work. "Initially it was laughed at but by persisting, I've created my own genre and devoted audience," she says.

Whether it is Salim who cut off his little finger and threw it into the Yamuna river as part of a performance or London-based Ansuman Biswas, whose performance CAT entailed spending 10 days in a sealed, soundproof and lightproof black box drinking only water as a reexamination of the paradox of Schroedinger's cat, performance art has succeeded in creating an alternative vocabulary within the realm of the visual arts.

"For me, it was important to make the audience part of my work," says Mukul Deora of his interactive work Break where Mumbai's well-heeled joined him in smashing a car.

MUKUL DEORA, 35Art: Break-AudienceInteractive Performance As Deora uses a sledgehammer to wreck a car, his audience has a smashing time too.

Salim and Shantanu Lodh took the performance route because the Indian galleries were not encouraging young talent. "Performance seemed like a personal statement against this trend. It's not a mainstream genre and we are still only a handful," says Lodh.

Tushar Jiwarajka, gallerist of Volte Gallery, Mumbai agrees but says that things are changing. "It won't happen overnight, but the audience and the collectors are warming up to these shows. Ten years ago installations and photography was not considered mainstream, but today they are completely co-opted. The same thing will happen with performance art." Time will tell, they say, but it will also put up a good show.n

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